Another kind of celebration
by Armour-Duck
Summary: For a second, the anger and self-disgust in my chest is replaced by a empty feeling of hollowness and sorrrow.  'Happy birthday, Mello. For whatever it's worth to you now, I still love you.'  Written for Mello's 21'st birthday. Self-injury and swearing.


AN: I know you probably hate me now... But GOD, did I have to write this!

**And I promise, an update on CWGP will come soon. I'm really stuggling with chap. 11, so I'm thinking about pausing it for a while until I get my inspiration back... Don't worry tho, it's still in the thinking progress. ^^**

**Aaanyway, got off track.**

**This is (as you probably guessed from the summary) written for Mello's birthday. He's turning 21 today! (I still refuse to believe they're dead, so fuck off.) Happy Birthday, man! :D**

**So, the story. Um, this is a one-shot written in Matt's POV, about... Hey! I'm not gonna tell you what it's about! Go read it, you lazy bitch. x)**

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DEATHNOTE. Do you seriously believe I'd let Near win if I did? -.-'**

**Warnings: Erh... Heavy swearing, self-injury and... Way too many cigarettes in thirty minutes? Yeh, that's about it.**

* * *

I lift a cigarette with my trembling hands and move it to my lips. Flicking the lighter on, I try not to shake too much; accidentaly burning myself on the tip of my cigarette wasn't exactly what I'd planned.

Finally being able to, I breath in the nicotine slowly and leans my head to the windowpost. Closing my eyes, I gently exhales as it flows through my body. Jesus, if Mello's chocolate was anything like this to him, I shouldn't've scolded him so much. _Mello..._

My eyes dart open and I find myself staring into the dark skies outside of my window. Since it's December, opening it probably wasn't the best of ideas and I shudder as a cold wind blows through it. But I'm not about to close it; after all, smoking with the windows closed aren't a great idea here. After all, these kids are geniouses. They'd figure it out.

Not that it's not obvious already; it's been a while since I've tried to cover the scent of smoke if it suck to my clothes, and they all probably know by now anyway so I'm not going to start.

I lift the cigarette to my lips again and slowly inhale the smoke that he allways said would give me lung cancer. I have to chuckle at that memory. We had so many meaningless fights about that.

_"Just shut up, Matt!" He yells at me and snatches the half-finished cigarette from my mouth and throws it out the window. "I don't give a fuck, so just shut up and quit it!"_

_"I've told you" I shouted back at his annoyed face, "That I'll quit smoking when you quit eating chocolate! For fucks sake, if I get lung cancer you'll die of some obesity-related disease!" He snarled at me. I rolled my eyes. _

_"It's not the same thing!"_

_"It's exactly the same thing!"_

_"No, it's not, because the difference is that I'm not obese but your lungs probably look like shit." Ignoring the logic in his argument, I sat down on my bed again. "And I swear to God, if you're about to pick up your game again, I'll fucking-" He was interrupted as a pillow hit him square in the face. _

_"Score!" I said triumphingly. Mallo stared at me. _

_"You fucking threw a pillow at me?" I rolled my eyes again._

_"No shit, Sherlock." He simply snorted and returned the damn gesture. And with returning, I mean he smacked my head with it so hard I almost fell over out of pure shock._

_His blue eyes glittered at me when I raised my head to look at him. I could sense the challenge in them; since this was one I was more than willing to take on, I threw myself over my other pillow and then the war began. None of us was keeping scores; it was just for the fun of it. Of course, we both refused to give up, so after a while we just ended up in a laughing heap on the floor._

_"You still got to quit smoking." Mello wrapped his arms around me loosely and gently hugged me. I nuzzled my face in his chest._

_"And you have to quit at least some of your chocolate." He laughed and lifted my head up to plant a quick kiss on my nose. _

_"Keep on dreaming. I'm never doing that." Then he let me go and stood up. "Hey, you wanna go dye Near's hair green or something? I'm bored." He said, stretching his arms over his head._

_"Whatever." I followed him out the door._

Flicking my finished cigarette out the window, I heave myself off the window pane and then reach out to close it. My fingers feel a bit cold from being exposed to the December air, but I don't really care as I draw the window shut. Not bothering to firmly close it, I climb off the bed and stands so for about a minute.

Today's Mello's sixteenth birthday.

Walking over to my bedside drawer, I've only got one thing in my thoughts as I open it. It takes me a few seconds to find what I'm looking for, but I do and hold it up. It's still in it's wrappings; I haven't been able to open it. After all, it's Mello's. I bought it for his fifteenth birthday. It was a real bitch to keep him from discovering it; not only had I got to buy it, but I had to keep it for a month before I could give it to him.

I'm still not going to tear the black wrappings off of it. I know it, but I still wanted to look at the un-opened present, hold it and know what's in it. Closing my eyes, I can still make up a clear mental picture of it.

It's nothing much, really, just one of those silly little 'friendship hearts' that you get two off, one for you to have and one for the other person to have. They are made out of brass, but they look like gold; that was the whole intention of the gift. Or, well, there was two ways to interpretate it, but one intention. Meaning, it ment two things; The first one was that he'd allways have a piece of my heart with him. Sappy, but true.

No matter what people would think about it, Mello will allways have a piece of me with him spiritually; I just wanted to give him something to show it. _You are a piece of me._

The other thing is simply that I think he's got a heart of gold. No matter what, he was allways there for me. Allways made sure I wasn't hurt, or did his best to comfort me if I was. _Until_, I think bitterly, _he decided to hurt me so deep I would never really heal; and then decide to not only not comfort me, but to fucking leave me._

But all in all, it was really only supposed to say one thing clearly. _I love you._

Because I do, and I did a year ago; I love him so much it fucking hurts to even think of it. I look back down at the small packet in my hands before I gently put it back in my drawer and close it. I blink away the tears in my eyes - _why do I allways fucking cry?_ - and then I walk over to the bureau and open the top drawer. It's still got some of Mello's stuff in it.

Roger wanted to remove all of his things when he left, but I refused to let him do that. After all, being responsible for an orphan that starves himself in protest is way worse than keeping some stuff after another orphan, so he let me keep Mello's possesions.

Among the things he decided to leave, his flattening iron is amongst them. I have no idea _why the fuck _he had a flattening iron - I never saw him use it - but I don't care too much as I plug the contact to the wall. Rolling up the left sleeve of my striped shirt, I sit down on his abandoned bed while I wait for the thing to heat up. When it's done, I try not to think of it so much and just stuff as much of my pillow as possible into my mouth and then press the furiously hot thing to my left forearm.

I do my best to not scream when white pain flows through me, but some still leaves me; most of the sound, though, gets smothered by the pillow in my mouth. I can't think as every nerve in my body seeme to be screaming at me to _FUCKING REMOVE THE FUCKING FLATTENING IRON FROM MY FUCKING ARM! _but I still force myself to keep it there a few more seconds, until I simply can't anymore and throws it across the room.

My right hand is shaking uncontrollable when I order it to pull the plug of the flattening iron; after that, I just can't cope with the pain anymore and simply lie down on the bed to form a trembling heap of suffering. My arm is still burning - tears are flowing freely from my eyes, son of a fucking bitch - and I almost feel like cutting it off. Still, I'm enjoying it. A sick, twisted part of my consciounsness loves the pain, welcomes it and greets it like a lover.

It's that part of me that blames me for practically everything bad that has ever happened to me. For my mother's illness, for my fathers suicide short after her own death; for the violent human being I turned into after that. And so on, until my head is spinning with memories of grief, hatred and dissappointment.

I curse loudly and force myself to stop with the self-pity. _Enough, _I tell my furiously agoning nerves. _Just quit fucking whining, you stupid son of a bitch._ I roll the sleeve arm down, and the feeling of rough fabric rubbing against the fresh burn makes my chest quiver. I feel like curling up in a small ball of agony and just be sad for myself a couple of years. But instead I tell myself to fucking stop being such a whiny pussy, light a cigarette and live with it.

So I do. And while the nikotine flows through my body, the next step of my little 'program' starts taking form in my head. My body screams _FUCKING HELL, NO!_ but I don't give a fuck what my body says anymore. Stopped doin' that months ago, and I'm perfectly fine. And if you say one thing about how I practically boiled my arm a few minutes ago, I'll seriously scratch your eyes out. And then bend your mouth open and shove them down your throath. And that is a seroius threath, you stupid motherfucker.

My cigarette's pretty much burned down to the filter by now, so I put it out by pressing the lit end to the previously un-harmed skin of my right wrist. Another shot of pain jolts through me, but as the sick and twisted little masochist I am, the part of me that's making me do this is feeling it as a fantastic pleasure. Wich basicly is a synonyme to 'I enjoy the pain because it makes me feel fucking anything and that that pleasure is the only one I have left; thus, hurting myself quickly became just another thing I do in my everyday life. Fuck you, it's my body.'.

I remove myself from the room - wich, by the way, now has this wierd smell of burnt flesh (_wonder why, hahaha_) hanging around - and stalk over to the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I quickly search through the drawers to pull out a pack of razors.

Call me a kliché emo, but those things are the best if you want to cut myself. And yeah, I have experience of that.

Lighting a new cigarette (think I'm overdoing it - after all, it's the... Third? Yeah, third, in about fifteen minutes) I open the pack and grab one of the razors way too quick; the sharp metal wounds my index finger and thumb. Not that I give a fuck, really; instead the blood seems to just exite me more. I unzip my pants and pulls the hem down about three inches on my left hip. A series of scars meets my eyes; most of them are still in healing process, but a few looks less or more healed up.

I bite down on the cig so hard it'll probably break soon as I move the razor closer to my hip. The final kick, stronger now, as it rasps the skin...

And then I'm slicing through flesh. This will, undoubtedly, be the deepest yet. Most of my prevoius cuts haven't really been that deep, more on the surface of my skin. But this one, however, goes deeper; more pain than I've ever experienced while cutting, but also fuckloads of more blood. Seeing the red liquid run over my hands and drip down on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor actually makes me drop the bloodied razorblade. A quick flash of fear shoots through me; _what the fuck are you doing, Matt? You stupid idiot! What the fuck do you think Mello would do if he saw you now?_

I actually laugh bitterly at the thought of him. Mello... _He's the motherfucking reason I cut myself to begin with, you moron mind. _If he hadn't left me, I wouldn't have a fucking reason to cut myself.

But seriously, this isn't the time for inner monologs. My hip is bleeding like hell, and I've got to stop it. Knowing exactly where it is, I pull a bottle of antiseptics out of the sink drawer, along with a pack of tampons. Yeah, say whatever the fuck you want; they're no.1 in sucking up blood and making the bleedings stop; besides, I won't risk having a small visit from Roger. After all, nobody would think of it as odd to find bloody tampons in th trash. So yeah, I might be a total bitch - I don't care. Just unwrap the fucking thing and drag it along the wound.

Like a sponge the white cotton thing expands, turning red in the process. The second one almost stops the bleeding and the third one does the job. Opening the bottle of antiseptics, I decide to just pour it rigt onto the cut. Big mistake. I wasn't at all prepared for the pain that burned through me and had to clash my hands over my mouth hard to keep from screaming, letting the bottle drop to my feet. Okay, so no more antiseptics!

I don't really do much else, just rips a fourt tampon apart and stuffs the white cotton in my wound to prevent if from bleeding, then put a piece of duct tape - why the fuck do you keep duct tape in a bathroom? - over it. Then comes the boring part where I wash my hands, pour water at the flor tiles to rinse away the rests of blood and antiseptics, and throw away the used tampons. (That sounds so wrong, but I'm gonna keep it anyway. Sue me.)

In about ten minutes, I'm back in my room, working my way through my fourth cigarette. Every time I move, the fresh wounds scream at me and I laugh bitterly again and turn my DS on. _Self-injury over, it's Mario time!_

Before I turn my full attention to the game, I take a moment to stare out on the black sky outside of my window. For a few seconds, the anger and self-disgust in my chest is replaced by a empty feeling of hollowness and sorrrow.

_Happy birthday, Mello._ I think and force myself not to let my eyes flow over again. _For whatever it's worth to you now, I still love you._

And then I turn my attention back to the game, shutting the world out and ignoring the few tears that don't give a fuck about my command and instead decides to roll down my cheeks.

* * *

A couple of years later, after Mello had gone back to Wammy's to pick me up, he pushed me to a wall and asked me right out what the scars were.

I wasn't quite sure what to tell him, so I simply said what fell into my thoughts.

"They're what held me up for a long while. Physical pain is better than not feeling anything at all. That is, if you exclude the fucking ache of a broken fucking heart. It was relieving to think of something else for a while." The look he gave me was both furious and devastated, and then he wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug.

"Matt, you stupid son of a bitch..." He whispered in my ear with a shaking voice. "I never meant... To hurt you that much. I..."

"Well, you did." I answered him but still slid my own arms around his torso. "And now you have to live with it."

"I'm so sorry, Matt." I could sense he was on the edge of sobbing now. The feeling was so strange, in a wierd way. Mello crying just wasn't part of... Normal activity. "If I'd known you would react like that... I shouldn't have left you."

"You can't change the past, Mello." I knew it hurt him. Of course it did; it fucking hurt _me_, but sometimes you just can't run away from facts anymore. "The only thing you can do is to make sure the future is a lot fucking better."

A part of me hadn't forgiven him, and never would. The way he'd hurt me was way deeper than any of my scars, and far more painful than the burn marks on our skins. I knew I could never truly forgive him or ever truly trust him again. He knew it too; and_ fuck _if it seemed to hurt him. Not that he didn't deserve it; Mello knew that too.

He could never make me completely forgive him - all he could to was to try and make me trust him. Not that I ever would be able to do that again. (Insert bitter chuckle here.) He probably knew that too, but his lips still desperately hoped for it at he crashed them against my own and, despite everything, I answered it fully.

After all, I still loved him and most likely allways will. I was his Matt and he was my Mello. Even though I didn't forgive him; even though I didn't trust him, I loved him.

Still do.

**

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AN: So, this was a lot darker than most of what I've posted here before is... And I promise I'll update CWGP soon. I just had to write this. After all, most of the tings I write are based on tragedy and angst - CWGP don't really have much of that, so I had to do this in order to keep this from entering that story. Somehow I doubt you guys would appreciate it...

**Anyway.**

**This was originally planned to go with a lot more fluffy sequel-type'thing, but I decided not to. And I know, it's a crappy birthday present; yada-fucking-yada. I baked a chocolate cake today; that's a fucking awesome b-day present to Mello, so shut up. ^^**


End file.
